“My brother writes some of that kind of stuff. Not me.”
“Mm.”
Cam was glad when Sven didn’t blather. The thought of rustic Ole writing poetry…well, not much surprised him anymore.
The headlights picked up several sets of tire tracks in Findley’s drive.
“Say, how many sets of tracks you think there are?” Cam asked.
Sven’s narrow face reflected the ice of the dashboard lights. Cam wondered again what he was thinking—what any of them were doing, for that matter. Ole was skiing in from the other direction not adjoining the Limm place. He’d not said much when they were hatching this crazy plot, merely cleaned and loaded two rifles and a Colt .45, believe it or not, while Sven packed up his shotgun and smiled. On the way in, Sven casually mentioned his brother’s attraction to Lily and the fact that he’d asked her out. Cam’s face grew warm at the TMI girly gossip, wondering what the guy would do if he found out Lily’d been sleeping in his bed the last few nights.
Sven crunched to a stop fifty yards from the cabin. A flash to their right meant Ole was on schedule. At least Cam hoped it was the other brother. Showtime.
He and Sven slipped from the cab of the truck and gently pushed their doors almost shut. Sven disabled the emergency lights earlier, though he couldn’t stop the click of the cooling engine. As agreed, they wove silently through Findley’s outbuildings. No light shone from any of them. Tire tracks disappeared into what Cam assumed was a garage, a heavy door closed over them. At least there was intermittent moonlight.
Cam trod over the snow to the front door while Sven got the back. A beam glowed briefly off the barrel of Ole’s .22 where he held it ready.
For what? Cam took a deep breath and prayed he wasn’t about to get involved in another disastrous situation. Lily may have chosen to go with Kingston Findley, but he thought she’d have left a note and not poisoned his dog.
He looked back at Ole again, tried to flex some of the tension from his shoulders and raised his gloved fist to bang on the door.
* * *
Art sat back in the hard, straight chair in the bare conference room at Barter Valley’s police headquarters. It was hard to be nervous in a place that also housed the local library right next door. What was the plan, here? Scare the people who had overdue books with lockup time? Hard labor to work off the fines? He pushed back from the table, making the chair legs squeal on the floor.
They let him make a call when he first came in. Roman always told him to call this guy, Slent, if he needed any help. Slent hadn’t answered, and Roman wasn’t allowed to take any more calls. Art couldn’t call in any favors at the prison, due to his resignation.
He wasn’t sure who else to call if Slent didn’t call back. Deegan refused to say where they’d found the Jeep or if Lily was in it. Or what shape it was in. If she ditched it, great, but why bring him in? He shifted in the chair again. The chemical smell of newly cleaned tile floor was getting to him and he turned his head to sniff through his shirt sleeve. What was taking so long? It was dark and he was hungry. He was going to walk out if they didn’t come soon.
The door opened and Deegan and another uniform came in. Before they closed it, though, Art noticed one of the feds out there, having a heavy discussion with the chief.
“Cup of coffee?” not-Deegan asked.
Art pursed his lips, pretending to ponder the matter. His stomach growled. “Yeah, why not?”
Deegan didn’t sit, just set a folder on the table and opened it.
“So, where’d you find my Jeep?” Art asked for the third time.
“In a minute.”
The other cop returned with a paper cup and set it on the table. Art sniffed again, this time without wanting to puke. He took an experimental taste. “Not terrible.”
“Yeah,” Deegan said, face still in the exciting file. “We have one of those new machines.” He glanced up with a smile. “This is Officer Jenner.”
Art nodded. He’d play along. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jenner didn’t give off cozy vibes. Okay, bad cop.
“We found your vehicle close to town, Mr. Townsend,” Deegan said. “On the property of James and Jennifer Frost.”
“I don’t know them.”
“They don’t know you, either, they said when we talked to them.” Deegan still hadn’t sat, though Jenner did.
Art sighed with a little drama. “So, the person who took my Jeep didn’t get very far?”
“The person?” Jenner asked.
His deep voice carried a bit of an edge to it. He leaned forward and clasped the edge of the table, his wedding ring making a dull clank.
“I thought you said you let your sister take your vehicle, Mr. Townsend. Your sister, Lily Masters?” Deegan said.
“Stepsister. I told you that I assumed she borrowed it.” Art leaned back and thought, too easy. C’mon, Deegan, is that all you got? “She wasn’t in it, then? So she could tell you herself?”
“Why, no, Mr. Townsend. She wasn’t there.”
Jenner stood, sending his chair squirting back. “Someone else was.”
* * *
“Findley!” Cam pounded, making the door rattle. Nothing. He tried the knob, slipped, took off the glove, and tried again. It turned.
He swiveled in Ole’s direction and raised his hand, pointing toward the door. Ole acknowledged with a wave of the rifle and aimed it again.
Cam pushed the door open and stepped into the dark. Of course the floor creaked. “Findley? Lily? Anyone?” He held his breath and listened. Was that the sound of the night wind seeping into the place, sighing through logs in the fireplace, or someone breathing? He tried to count the breaths to determine if they were human. Sven rattled the knob of the back door, making the glass rattle in the little panes. Cam followed the noise, stubbing his toe on one of the rockers before reaching and unlocking it.
“I didn’t see anything out there,” Sven whispered. “You?”
“Nope.” Cam spoke in his normal voice. “I’m turning on the lights.”
“Wait!”
But he already reached the switch and flipped it. Both of them blinked under the deer antlers of the hanging light, looked around, and settled on the occupant of the largest rocking chair around the cold woodstove. She was wrapped in a huge scarlet and gray wool blanket and rested unnaturally like a small child in an adult’s world, but her cheeks were pink and she was breathing.
When another person lumbered through the door, Cam whipped his Magnum Camo Bowie out in record time and slipped into a half-crouch in front of Lily.
“Ole! Don’t…” Cam sucked in a breath and went numb. Ole wasn’t alone.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Art was supposed to ask who else had been in his car, but he didn’t care much either way. “Was my Jeep busted up?” At least he could make an insurance claim. A real one. He tilted his face up at Deegan, who had not yet sat. Art knew that one, trying to make a man feel small by making him look up all the time. Not gonna work here.
Jenner, with his antsy feet and practice shoulder rolls, might get physical, though. “You really are cold, aren’t you?”
Art folded his arms and stared straight ahead.
Deegan pushed the folder aside and set one cheek on the table, adjusting his belt so all the toys showed. “When was the last time you saw your nephew, Kenny Masters, Mr. Townsend?”
Art’s fingers grew cold. Think, think, think! “His mother told me the boy was playing with his friends.”
“And when was this?”
He squenched his toes and pretended to ponder. His stomach growled. “Uh…lessee. There’s been a major blizzard for the past three days. You met me there on Saturday, Officer Doo-Deegan.”
Jenner stood.
“Friday, maybe.” Art glared up at Jenner. “Yeah, school was out and all. I went in to work that night in all that. Didn’t even have my own…I mean, since my other sister, uh, stepsister, borrowed my J
eep and all.” He quickly switched gears. “It was dangerous weather for driving.”
“You didn’t try to talk your sister out of leaving?” Deegan asked. “Where did you say she was headed?”
“Minneapolis.” Art let his arms fall to his lap and hunched. “She went back to where she’d been living before. Hard to find a job around here.”
“Hard everywhere,” Deegan commented. “So did you two get in a fight?”
“Fight?” Art swallowed. “What do you mean? Did she—” He stopped and puckered his eyebrows. They both eyeballed him like he was a run-over squirrel and they were crows.
His stomach growled again. The only sound in the room was his whistling breathing through one nostril of his broken nose. “I don’t got to say anything without my lawyer present.” Those two jokers weren’t going to get him to say anything. He wasn’t that dumb.
“We’re just concerned about you,” Deegan said. “Looks like you had some trouble.”
“I fell.” Art rubbed his arms.
Jenner leaned. “So, what can we do to help you?”
Art’s stomach rumbled loudly. He shifted from his arms to his belly. “I could use a sandwich. Someone swiped my last paycheck. I got no money.”
Jenner and Deegan glanced at each other. “Sure, Art,” Jenner said. “That’s pretty rotten, taking a guy’s paycheck and all. How come you don’t have direct deposit?”
“That’s my business.”
“Sure, sure,” Deegan said. “Did you want to file a report on the theft? And appears they roughed you up some, hey? Who did it? We’ll help you. Jenner, make sure you bring back the right forms with his sandwich, okay?”
That’s more like it, Art thought. Though by the stupid grin Jenner wore, Art would check the food before he ate it.
“So, want to tell me what happened?” Deegan asked after the door closed behind the other cop.
“About what?”
“How about we start with your nose? How’d you break it? Looks sore.”
“I told you. I fell.”
“At work.”
“Well, yeah.”
“At the prison? Did you file a report?” Deegan took Jenner’s spot at the table and raised a pen over a notebook.
How to get out of this one? Think, Arthur, think! “I don’t work there anymore.”
“You get fired?”
“No, course not. I was one of their best…I was…I worked there a long time. Ten years. Ever since high school. I got my ten-year certificate in September.”
Deegan scratched something in the notebook. Art heard it but kept his eyes on the new floor, tiles meant to resemble wood, only it was faker’n fake and smelled like the dead horses they made glue out of. He’d been so hungry he forgot, but now he was so sad he didn’t think he could eat the sandwich, even if it was his favorite honey-smoked ham and swiss on marble rye with barbeque sauce. Not even then. He rubbed his stomach and asked Deegan for a repeat when he realized there’d been a question.
“What made you quit your job, Art?”
“It was a who, not a what,” he replied.
“Who, then. Who made you quit?”
He couldn’t say. He wouldn’t tell on his stepdad. Maybe he could go with Roman, wherever they sent him. Art didn’t want to go to work for the Limms. No one told him about a passport yet. He needed one if he was expected to leave the country. There were probably shots involved too. In fact, maybe he’d drive back to the prison and tell them sorry, it was a mistake. This whole thing was a mistake. He got up.
“Hey, there, buddy,” Deegan said. “Your food is coming, remember?”
“No food is worth this.”
“Ours will be.” Deegan stood too. “Don’t you want us to help you?”
“No. I know my rights. You can’t keep me here against my will. I didn’t do anything wrong, and you haven’t arrested me.” He took two steps around the table.
“What about your Jeep?” Deegan moved to intercept him.
“Keep it. If it’s wrecked, I’ll get a new one.” He walked toward the door.
“It’s not wrecked.”
Deegan better not touch him. They danced an arm’s length away from each other.
“We have some information about your nephew we thought you should know.”
Art stopped. “What about him? Where is the little puke?”
The door opened again, and Jenner appeared, holding a paper bag. Behind him was Maury Limm, staring straight into the room.
The choking sensation started when Art swallowed wrong. He gasped and tears burned his eyeballs. He bent over and wheezed, trying to get a breath. No matter what else, no matter if he said it was all Lily’s idea and they believed him, he was not going anywhere with the Limms.
He reared back and hit Jenner in the gut with everything he had left.
* * *
“Oh ho! Way to make an entrance, bro. You’re gonna wake the dead, you keep that up. And you know what she’ll say-yay...” Sven burst through the other side of the cabin, stopping short at the sight of Ole’s unexpected shadow.
The stranger moved cautiously into the room, away from the open door and the night-black rectangle of window. He held his rifle toward them, stock out, with one hand and showed something glinty in the other.
“Federal agent, folks. I’m setting this over here, now. Stand down, people. We’re all on the same side.”
Ole never stopped his charge toward the chair where Lily lay bundled. He’d pulled off a glove and soothed the hair from her forehead with one huge paw.
Cam straightened, sheathed the knife, and took a breath.
“Uh, right,” Sven said, and cleared his throat to return his voice to the proper octave. “Ole mentioned something about a party. Thought he meant Charlie and Buck bringing up the rear with the proper celebratory refreshments.”
Cam bit his lip at Sven’s nervous dialog and the thought of the two grizzled geezers who held up either side of the long bar at Tweety’s. He’d only been in there twice, but they were legend to Wally. “Cam Taylor.” He nodded toward the agent, who was squinting all around the room.
“Special Agent Forbes,” the guy said. He put his hands on his hips and studied Cam almost as thoroughly as he had the room. “Any sign of the owner?”
“How do you know she’s not the owner?” Cam asked, looking pointedly at Lily. Ole better stop fawning all over her or Cam was likely to break his hand. He took another deep breath, trying to get a grip.
“This property is owned by Kingston Albert Findley,” Forbes hedged.
Cam waited for more. Sven had shut up for a change, at a time when Cam wished he’d jump in with his eager chatter. “Yeah, and what are you doing here?” he finally asked in his best grunt-in-charge voice.
“Just checking on things,” the agent responded, madly calm.
Forbes smiled in a way that made Cam crack his knuckles and said through stiff lips, “And what are you doing here?”
“Rescuing her,” Ole responded first.
Sven joined his brother. “She all right, ya think, there, Ole?”
“Dunno. She’s breathing.” Ole’s lower lip protruded. “Shudda brung the ambulance.”
“Yeah, should we call the…uh…” Sven cast Cam a confused squint, glanced at Forbes, then back at Cam again, wagging his eyebrows.
Lily moved her head for the first time since they arrived, grimaced, and cracked open her eyelids. She moved her mouth like it was full of grit. “Whaa?”
“We gotcha, Lil, don’t worry,” Ole breathed in her face.
She turned her cheek to the side and found Cam, blinked, and seemed to focus. Her slow smile made his muscles relax, his jaw unclench.
It apparently had the opposite effect on Ole, who swooped her up, blanket and all. “Where’re you parked? We’re going in. Get on the horn.”
Sven jumped to attention. “Yeah, yeah, up a ways. Lemme get the keys—”
“Ole!” Lily squirmed.
“Wait just a min
ute!” Forbes called out and planted himself in front of the door. He was maybe a couple of inches taller than Cam and about half the width of Ole. What he thought he could do to stop a smitten raging bull Viking, Cam had no idea. Impressive. Forbes didn’t have another weapon that Cam could see.
The agent approached Lily, staying out of Ole’s reach. “Ma’am, Special Agent Forbes. Are you all right?”
At her puzzled nod, he went on. “Can you answer a few questions?”
“Ole, put me down!” She pushed her elbows against him. “Back in the chair, though, ’K, buddy. My feet are sore. Thata guy. Thanks, man.”
Forbes stayed his ground. “Your name?”
She sent a sideways glance at Cam.
“Lily Masters,” he said, and withstood her glare. He shrugged. “They told me in town.” He ignored Forbes’s smirk.
“Miss?” At her reluctant nod, Forbes continued. “Miss Masters, how did you come to be here in Kingston Findley’s cabin?”
Her eyes lost their focus as she pondered an answer. “I assume he brought me,” she said.
“You assume?”
“He came to see me. At Cam’s place.” Lily looked at him again. “He put something in my drink. I must have blacked out.”
“Something? Maybe a drug? How do you feel now?”
“I think so. A little headachy.”
“And you mentioned something about your feet?”
Cam stepped in again. “She has frostbite. The hospital—”
“Huh!”
Cam ignored Ole’s grunt. “Said they were busy, once I was able to call after the storm. She’ll be okay. I think. But a blood sample would be good to attempt to determine what kind of drugs were used.” Cam was careful in light of Lily’s fragile state to not place specific blame or crime. Maybe to impress the fed, as well.
Forbes folded his arms and cocked his head slightly. “You’re a medical doctor?”
“Medic,” Cam corrected, though something in the way he said it made Cam wonder if he knew anything else about him. Like his abandoned almost-PhD. “US Army…” he considered giving all the usual stats, but opted against. “Can I see your ID? Up close? Agent Forbes?”
Forbes kept his eyes on Cam while he reached in his pocket again. “Sure. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Understory Page 16
